Goblin Valley State Park, Utah

Many of you have probably never heard of Goblin Valley State Park, but if you've ever watched movies that feature unique rock formations, you've probably seen this place.

One of the most popular movies filmed in Goblin Valley State Park was Galaxy Quest.  This Star Trek-esque comedy features Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Tony Shalhoub and is one of my families favorite movies.  The scenerey is so unique here it made an excellent alien planet.  If you are wondering where this scene appears in the movie, look for the part where they need to find a beryllium sphere and visit a planet to do so.  That entire scene was filmed in Goblin Valley.  Above, you can see my mom and dad found a sphere!

The park is about a 4 hour drive from Salt Lake City, 2 hours from Canyonland National Park/Arches National Park, and about 4.5 hours from St. George.  It's definitely off the beaten path; the last 30 minutes or so we thought we might not be on the right road because it kind of goes on forever.  Keep on going and follow signs, though, as a visit is well worth it.  Keep track how many miles your GPS says and watch your odometer as the cell signal in this area is very, very bad.  We went in December of 2013 and we had great weather!  A snow storm had just passed through, but the roads were clear and the skies were sunny.  In this area we had fog/clouds as you can see in the pictures, but once you leave Goblin Valley it clears up.

Below are some more photos from this awesome state park.  For more information, please visit:

http://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/goblin-valley/